


breathlessly, live (there's a place for us)

by guiltylights



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, I whacked this out in three days because Feelings, Me? Projecting Onto Sanji? Of Course Not?, Nami is a lesbian, Other, SANJI AND NAMI FRIENDSHIP pays my damn bills, Sanji is a bisexual but Repressed, This is how Nami helps Sanji take the first steps towards self-acceptance, also Sanji goes through something like hyperventilation?, an overwhelm of emotion for sure, because the Vinsmokes will always be assholes even in an AU, but also Sanji takes the first steps himself, happy pride month!!, hard to describe this, so be warned if you want to avoid something like that!, there are mentions of an abusive family, this is very self-indulgent as a fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 18:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19234798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guiltylights/pseuds/guiltylights
Summary: ‘You don’t have to prove anything, you know,’ Nami says finally.Sanji frowns, puzzled. ‘I’m not proving anything?’‘No Sanji, I think you are. It sometimes feels like you’re doing this more for your own sake than for mine.’





	breathlessly, live (there's a place for us)

**Author's Note:**

> [Time started: 14th July 19, 8:59pm;– ] 
> 
> Title kind of taken from The Greatest Showman’s “This is Me”, but also kind of not. When I first listened to the song I kind of thought the lyrics could be an LGBT anthem, and so I’ve viewed it that way ever since. 
> 
> I don’t have anything else to add here except Happy Pride Month!

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He’s halfway through his second minute of rhapsodising about the beauty of her eyes when she interrupts him. 

‘Why do you always do that?’ She asks, and Sanji pauses, stumped.

‘…I don’t understand, darling Nami,’ he offers, as way of reply.

From where she’s seated at the living room table, Nami waves an impatient hand over Sanji’s entire figure standing at attention a little ways from her as though referring to the entirety of him. He’s just served her tea and pastries he’d baked himself earlier this morning, at her request; they’re the only ones in the house today. Chopper and Usopp are at university, Franky and Robin and Jinbei are out at work, Brook is down at his local gig as a performer in the café two blocks down the road, the stupid green fuckhead Zoro was supposed to be back from kendo practice like two hours ago but probably get lost on the way back again, and honestly who even knows where Luffy goes to on a regular basis. ‘ _That,_ Sanji. This. Why are you constantly fawning over every single woman you meet as though that’s the only thing you can do?’

Ah. Well, that has an easy enough explanation.

‘Because women are wonderful, lovely creatures, my dear Nami,’ Sanji says, a gushing tone entering his voice as he deliberately and dramatically spins forward to kiss Nami’s hand. Nami lets him do it but rolls her eyes his behaviour; and Sanji is startled to find that it hurts his feelings more than a little bit. He brushes it off. ‘That includes you of course, exquisite as you are, and that’s why I shower you—and all other women in this world—all the compliments you deserve.’

‘I’m a lesbian, you know,’ Nami says bluntly.

Sanji raises an eyebrow. ‘Yes, I’m quite aware, you came out to all of us about a year ago. I support you wholeheartedly, of course, and would kick the ass of anyone who would dare do otherwise—’ They both remembered the incident at their local bar four months back, ‘—but I don’t compliment you because I want sex or a relationship or _anything_ from you, wonderful Nami; it’s simply because I believe that you deserve to be told you’re beautiful.’

And Sanji means every word that he has just said; when she had first told them all those months ago, everybody sat down in the living room in an early morning meeting that was rarely called enough that even Luffy showed up on time for it despite the hour, of course Sanji had been shocked, and startled at the new revelation (he honestly hadn’t even guessed), but that had quickly given way to warm acceptance and protectiveness in himself as everybody had proceeded to gather around Nami’s chair offering nothing but love and support. And how could they done anything otherwise, Sanji would’ve never known; not only just because the love that binds their ragtag team of friends together is stronger and more miraculous than anything Sanji has ever seen, but also because the way Nami had looked, hands twisting themselves together as though she had to physically wring out the courage to tell them from her bones like liquid from cloth, the shake to her shoulders, the jut of her chin when she had finally lifted her eyes and told them.

After she had told them, there had been silence for ten seconds, and then Luffy had gotten up, thrown his arms around her, and declared a ten-minute hug session to _show support that Nami is Lebanese, wait no, lesbian? My bad, ten-minute hug time to support that Nami is lesbian!_ Trust Luffy to completely ruin the mood, and yet know exactly what to say. Nami had laughed then, eyes wet, and that had been the most beautiful thing.

Nami is staring at him now with her eyes narrowed. She’s got a shrewd look in her eyes, the kind she gets only when she’s betting money against some poor unsuspecting bastard at the bar or when she’s standing up for her friends for being loud and obnoxious in public spaces (despite the fact that that is totally and completely their fault), and on instinct Sanji shivers. But then he remembers that this is Nami and Nami has always loved all of them wholly and with a kind of fierceness that implies that she would go to war for them if only they asked, and that includes him, too, so he straightens his shoulders and reminds himself not to be afraid.

‘You don’t have to prove anything, you know,’ Nami says finally.

Sanji frowns, puzzled. ‘I’m not proving anything?’

‘No Sanji, I think you are. It sometimes feels like you’re doing this more for your own sake than for mine.’

Sanji stills from where he had originally been leaning over ready to whisk away the plate that Nami has just finished clearing in front of her. ‘…I don’t understand,’ he says, slowly.

When Nami speaks again, her voice is brisk but not unkind. ‘Tell me, Sanji. Have you ever liked men?’

There’s a loud roaring noise in Sanji’s ears that is drowning out every other sound. Sanji can barely hear the words coming from his own mouth as he forces them through his lips. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nami dear.’

Nami sighs. The sound is little, probably means nothing at all, but yet it pierces through Sanji’s chest more effectively than any knife or sword could. He flinches, and Nami notices. Her eyes soften.

‘Oh, Sanji. No, you’re misunderstanding this. Here, sit.’

Stiffly, despite every instinct in his body telling him not to, Sanji slowly sits down across Nami at the dining table, because despite himself he has never been able to refuse the people he loves anything they wanted. He’s itching for a cigarette.

Nami’s hands reach out to cover Sanji’s own. Sanji jerks; immediately he darts his gaze up to apologise, but Nami is looking at their hands instead.

‘It’s not that I’m pressuring you to tell me anything that you don’t really want to,’ she says, voice soft. ‘That’s your choice, and as your friend I would never want to do anything that disrespects your boundaries. But it’s just that—sometimes, you look sad.’

Nami frowns and shakes her head. ‘No, not sad,’ she corrects. ‘But you sometimes look like you’re trying so hard to suppress something inside yourself. Like you’re holding your breath without ever knowing when you can let it out again.’

‘I’m happy,’ Sanji replies, automatically, like he’s trying to convince Nami, convince _someone,_ and Nami is quick to nod.

‘I never said you weren’t.’ Nami says, face open and reassuring like he hasn’t seen since his mother died years ago, and shit, Sanji thinks he might cry. ‘But it’s not as if you can just be happy or unhappy. It’s not a select-one-out-of-two-options thing. I don’t doubt that you’re happy now, with us, living in this house all together, but—’ Nami squeezes his hands. ‘I feel like you could be happier.’

There’s something overwhelming Sanji right now. Cresting like a high wave, it is crawling over his spine, slithering, tapping him on his shoulders, snaking over his neck, tightening slowly so that he can’t breathe. It is broad daylight, and sunlight is streaming bright and unassuming through the living room windows, bouncing off the wall mirror Usopp had brought home one day and hung on their living room wall so that Nami would stop barging into his room to use his, and yet still out of a sheer sense of paranoia Sanji doesn’t dare look over his shoulder; he knows that there will be nothing there and yet he still doesn’t turn around for fear of seeing himself staring right back at him.

‘I just wanted to let you know.’ Nami says. ‘You can tell us anything.’

Sanji’s fingers are shaking. He can feel them, trembling silently under Nami’s grasp which is as warm and as bright as compassion. ‘I _can’t,’_ he says, helplessly, breathlessly, and the way Nami is soothingly rubbing the inside of his wrist with her thumb is more than Sanji can bear. ‘And it’s not, it’s not you—or, or the others, or—I love all of you guys and would tell you _anything,_ give you _anything_ —it’s just—’

‘You don’t have to give us anything you don’t want to,’ Nami interrupts, gently. ‘We don’t need you to always be serving us something that you think you should be. We would love you all the same. You don’t—you don’t always have to be _of service,_ Sanji.’

And that’s probably the thing that punches the breath out of him, isn’t it, Sanji thinks, as he hunches over the living room table in the middle of the home that he and his friends had built for themselves out of love and bravery and reclamation, staring so hard at the wooden grain of the table surface that his eyes blurs. Oh, no, hang on, he’s crying. Oh, that’s what this is. These are tears. Oh. Oh.

Nami looks stricken. ‘Sanji—'

‘I’m fine,’ Sanji manages to gasp out, in between tamping down his absolute mortification at appearing at his worst in front of dear, beautiful Nami and desperately willing his voice to stop having that hitch and heave of breath, ‘I’m fine—I’m okay, I just—I need—’

 _'Stop that,’_ Nami snaps. ‘Stop saying that you’re fine and that you’ll be able to handle things when you clearly would want or even need help! You’re allowed to—you’re allowed to ask for help, you’re allowed to want things more than what you _need,_ you deserve all those things from us, you shouldn’t think you have to be nothing more than a _service_ —’

‘That’s not it,’ Sanji says.  

Sanji doesn’t know how to begin to explain it. Explain how service and offering things to others isn’t what makes him hold his breath, not really, because he’s always been giving in his kindness, and it isn’t a loss to him to regularly go out of his way coming home from work to pick up those oranges that Nami wanted, or the new grease oil that Usopp and Franky had talked about, or even some extra alcohol that the stupid lughead known as Zoro would appreciate even if he would never say it. Sanji doesn’t know how to explain that he doesn’t _need_ to hear words of gratitude, not really, because he already knows his friends and knows that they love the things he does for them, and because he derives satisfaction for having done the act of love itself; Sanji loves to be of service not just because of any flaw of insecurity but because it is also in his nature. He chose to be a cook for a reason after all. But also Sanji doesn’t know how to begin to explain that he needs to be of service also stems from insecurity. That if he’s seen as useful, then he won’t ever have to worry about being abandoned.

And Sanji remembers early childhood days, remembers when his family except his mother had been nothing but toxicity and vicious spite, people who had made fun of him and excluded him and left him behind for not being fast enough, smart enough, power-hungry enough. Heartlessness they called ambition, malice they called pride in the family name—his father had been nothing but a looming figure of judgment that can still make Sanji’s hands shake even to this day, his words always cold and clean and so precisely cruel. These kinds of things stick with anyone, as a child, makes it so that even when Sanji finally made it out and got adopted by a blustering father-figure who is blunt and sharp-tongued but still endlessly patient in his love, Sanji still don’t know how to let himself go. Sanji still strains to be nothing less than exceptional, to be nothing less than precisely what others want him to be, need him to be, expectations placed on his shoulders made twice as heavy by his own paranoid fear of being left empty and staring into the lonely dark.

And Sanji doesn’t know how to explain how things can stick, as a child. That he can still remember his old family calling him “gay” for not wanting to step on snails and worms on the sidewalk, still remember Vinsmoke Judge’s curl of the lip as he looked down his nose at his one failure of a son, saying, saying, _you’re already a disappointment, you had better not turn out a homosexual as well._ He doesn’t know how to begin to explain that even with a father-figure now whom he knows will accept and love him no matter what may come, a father figure who would and _has_ cut off a limb for him, he still doesn’t know how to let himself be. Still doesn’t know how to let go of antiquated ideas that have regardless conditioned him to be afraid and in denial, because it’s all the scared child desperate for nothing but acceptance and belonging still living within him has ever known. He’s gotten stronger, he knows he has, but honed instincts take years to get over.

Nami gets up from the other side of the table, walks over to him, and pulls him to her chest. Lets him sob like he hasn’t in a long while, like he hasn’t since he was a teenager and had the time and the energy to spend on catharsis, before life caught up with him and he’s had to adapt and overcome enough to stave off and push down his own fears so much so that they rise up to choke him only when he allows them to. Beautiful, wonderful Nami, who Sanji loves fiercely as family and with a kind of devotion that stuns him at times, lets him be a disgrace and doesn’t ask for an explanation or anything in return, and that means more to Sanji than he can express.

‘I like women,’ Sanji says into the crook of Nami’s shoulder, and Nami smooths a reassuring hand through his hair, ‘but I—I also like men, too. I think.’

It’s the first time Sanji has ever admitted this out loud to anybody other than himself, and saying it feels like releasing a breath he hasn’t even realised he’s been holding. Like breathing air for the first time and realising that what he’s been breathing before has been smoke. Sanji could almost cry again from the relief.

‘We love you for who you are, Sanji,’ Nami tells him, and means it. Sanji laughs shakily, and pulls away from Nami’s arms to wipe at his eyes. There’s a dark spot on Nami’s shirt, from his tears; Sanji looks at it, and doesn’t apologise.

‘Thank you,’ he says, instead, and Nami grins like that’s all that she needs.

‘Of course,’ she says, and Sanji smiles back in response. It’s not perfect, of course; even now he can feel his own panic at his admittance threatening to overwhelm him, persistent shadows clinging to his back that refuse to get shaken off, but also Sanji knows he doesn’t have to be afraid anymore. He glances over his shoulder; his kitchen, clean and bright, the sunlight turning it to golden. His own reflection staring back at him from the wall mirror.

Nami steps back, and stretches her arms up. ‘The others will be back soon,’ she says, glancing at the clock.

Sanji gets up. ‘I’ll start making dinner,’ he says, picking up Nami’s plate and cup of tea and turning towards the kitchen. He’ll wash his face there.

‘Do you need help?’

Sanji turns back. ‘No, but thank you,’ he says, smiling, and means it. The way Nami grins back in reply lets Sanji know that she understands.

Nami follows him to the kitchen, anyway. She seats herself on the island counter, and as Sanji bustles around the kitchen, she alternates between making conversation and gently prodding him about what he’s going to do next with his coming out. It is attentive and yet non-invasive, and Sanji feels at peace. Soon the others will be coming home. Soon everybody will be here for dinner, and it will be a warm and noisy affair with laughter and spillages and arguments over who gets the first cut of meat first (it’s usually Luffy through sheer tenacity), and he and Zoro will probably get into a pseudo-argument but that’ll be fine, and maybe Brook would string up a tune if he feels like it, and they might get noise complaints from the other neighbours again but that’ll be just fine, that’ll be just fine. He probably won’t tell them today, but he can tell them someday. He can take this one step at a time. He’ll be just fine.

He’ll be just fine.

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**Author's Note:**

> This probably would fit better and would have more impact in a longer story talking about repression and sexuality but all I really wanted was to write this One Scene in particular so here you go guys. This fic is by no means supposed to be a general metaphor or representation for any kind of coming out or sexuality, it is one individual experience of one whole multi-faceted tapestry, because experiences are unique even as we share commonalities. Regardless, I hope you found something of significance to take away here. This is set in the modern world because I wanted to talk about the significance of LGBT in the modern world, and I chose Sanji because, well, I understand him. (Me? Projecting Onto Sanji? Of Course Not (It’s More Likely Than You Think)) 
> 
> Happy Pride Month everybody! Love who you are, love who you were born as. You’re not wrong, you’re not sick, you’re you. The world is on a revolution, and changing day by day, so love whoever you want and celebrate in it, because love is a beautiful and powerful thing, and it can change the world. It might be difficult to get to that point, but you’ll get there. I swear on god for all of us, we will get there. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Tell me what you thought about the fic in the comments, that would be lovely :) I also have a [tumblr](http://guilty-lights.tumblr.com/), if you want to stop by! 
> 
> [Time ended: 16th June 19, 12:58pm;— ]


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